Comments on Other Publications
“On Tracing Australian
Jewish Genealogy”, Dr. Anthony P. Joseph, AJHS, vol. 5, part 8, May 1964.
Both the introductory examples quoted in this article are inaccurate, which indicates just how careful one has to be, particularly when researching a very old—and therefore, relatively speaking, common—Jewish name such as “Cohen”:
p.413: It is stated “For example, there was a Jew from Germany called Levy Emanuel Cohen who flourished in Brighton, England, about the year 1820. Several of his children migrated to Australia . . .”
Emanuel Hyam Cohen of Brighton was from Germany. Levy Emanuel Cohen was his eldest son. Emanuel Hyam Cohen’s two youngest sons, Abraham and Raphael (Ralph), migrated to Australia. Levy Emanuel Cohen (with another brother, Nathan) remained in England and was the publisher of the Brighton Guardian. So, it was Levy Emanuel Cohen’s two (younger) brothers (not his children) who migrated to Australia.
p.414: It is stated “As an example of this may be
cited the family tree of one of the sons [sic] of Levy Emanuel Cohen whom I have mentioned earlier. This son [sic] Abraham Cohen settled in Tamworth, NSW, where many
of his family still live today, including his grand-daughter, Mrs V. I. Cohen
. . .”
The Abraham Cohen who settled in Tamworth is not the Abraham Cohen “mentioned earlier” in the p.413 example. The one who settled in Tamworth was the younger brother of Lewis, Samuel and David Cohen (of David Cohen & Co; issue of Barnett and Sierlah); he is the Cohen of the business Cohen & Levy of Tamworth (and the ‘Levy’ was Louis Levy, the younger brother of Lewis Wolfe Levy). This Abraham Cohen’s descendants may well still be living in Tamworth. But, Mrs Victor I. Cohen was not his grand-daughter. Victor I. Cohen was the son of George Cohen (the twin brother of The Hon. Henry Emanuel Cohen, and older brother of Nathan Cohen). Victor married his first cousin, Ida Cohen, who was a daughter of his uncle Nathan (who settled in Tamworth in 1858). George and Nathan were both sons of the Abraham Cohen (who married Sophia, née Cohen, daughter of Henry and Elizabeth Cohen), who indeed was a son of Emanuel Hyam Cohen (married Hannah, née Benjamin) of Brighton, England, who, as previously mentioned, was also the father of Levy Emanuel Cohen. So, Mrs Victor I. (Ida) Cohen of Tamworth was a grand-daughter of an Abraham Cohen, but not the one who settled in Tamworth. Ida Cohen’s grandfather, Abraham Cohen, settled at various times in Sydney, Port Macquarie, Goulburn, and Sydney. Some of both George and Nathan Cohen’s descendants certainly do still live in Tamworth.
“Sir Benjamin
Benjamin”, ___________, AJHS,
vol. 6, part 3, March 1967.
On pp. 129–144 there is an extensive monograph on Sir Benjamin Benjamin. There are some errors therein: Edward Cohen arrived in Sydney, aboard The Brothers, on 21 December 1833. Benjamin’s wife Fanny was Edward Cohen’s niece (issue of his older sister Sophia and Abraham Cohen of Port Macquarie / Sydney)—not his younger sister. Edward Cohen’s father was Henry Cohen (of Port Macquarie / Sydney)—not Abraham Cohen. Henry Emanuel Cohen was Edward Cohen’s nephew (again, issue of Edward’s older sister Sophia and Abraham Cohen)—not his brother. Benjamin and Edward were not “brothers-in-law twice over” because, although Edward did marry Benjamin’s older sister Rebecca, it was Edward’s niece that Benjamin married.
“Edward Cohen”,
Geulah Solomon, Australian Dictionary of Biography, vol. 3, 1851–1890, pp.436–37. Published
1969.
I believe the author is in error when she states that at the time of the family’s arrival in 1833 Edward had “three sisters and four brothers.” There were then 10 children, so he had four sisters and five brothers (see above Appendix comment “How many children”). And again when she states Edward had “five sons and three daughters”. He had four sons and four daughters; one of the sons, Henry (b.1854), apparently died in infancy, another, the eldest son, Nathan, died, in his twentieth year, in 1867. And, a corrigendum to the ADB which attempts to correct the number of children mistakenly “corrects” the numbers on “line 7” which refer to Edward’s siblings—not his children!
Australian Genesis, Levi & Bergman, Rigby, 1974.
p.243: Neither Nathan Cohen nor his uncle William Cohen were related to the Abraham Cohen of the business Cohen & Levy of Tamworth. Nathan’s father was the Abraham Cohen who at one time was part owner and printer of the Australian newspaper. (See above comment on “On Tracing Australian Jewish Genealogy”, Dr Anthony P. Joseph).
This same paragraph also confuses Henry Cohen’s and Abraham Cohen’s children: “Among his eleven [sic] children were . . .” The structure of this paragraph is such that at this point I think we are still talking about Henry. Regardless, the Hon. Edward [Aaron] was Henry’s son (ie, Abraham’s brother-in-law), and Henry Emanuel, Nathan and Fanny were the children of Abraham and Sophia née Cohen (ie, grand-children of Henry). Of the children who survived to a mature age, Henry had 12 and Abraham 11. And, strictly speaking, Edward was “Mayor” of Melbourne, not Lord Mayor.
p.296, Note 17: “Clerk: William Cohen, in the Union Bank in Queens Street in 1841. He was a founding member of the Australia Felix Lodge of Freemasons and its second secretary. By 1851 he has settled in Tamworth (AO 2/7827).” The William Cohen listed in the Melbourne Directory of 1841 as a clerk at the Union Bank cannot be Henry’s William as he would have then been only 10 years old and undoubtedly, at that time, would have been still at Port Macquarie with his mother.
Australian Genesis, Levi & Bergman, Melbourne University Press,
2002.
p.301: Unfortunately, this edition still incorrectly identifies Edward Cohen as a son of Abraham Cohen. The Hon Edward Cohen was the second son of Henry and Elizabeth Cohen (of Port Macquarie). He was a brother-in-law of Abraham, Abraham having married Sophia, Edward’s older sister.
Also this Abraham Cohen (Henry Emanuel Cohen’s father) was at the time ‘late of Goulburn’ according to Henry Emanuel’s letter of introduction from Samuel Cohen (of David Cohen & Co, in Sydney) to Lewis Wolfe Levy, the partner in Maitland in 1856. Abraham’s brother-in-law Joseph Simmons (married to Abraham’s wife’s sister, Nancy) was apparently also in Goulburn about this time, which suggests there was indeed a Goulburn connection. However, I have found no record of this Abraham Cohen being in Tamworth. Several of his children were. But, the Abraham Cohen who was in business in Tamworth was actually a younger brother of Lewis, Samuel and David Cohen (of David Cohen & Co, Maitland) (See above comment on “On Tracing Australian Jewish Genealogy”, Dr. Anthony P. Joseph).
City on the Peel, Roger Milliss, Reed, Sydney, 1980.
p.277 (chapter 3, note 2) William Cohen came to Australia in 1833 at the age of about two—not “1836 at the age of five.” William was the youngest of the then ten siblings who, with their mother Elizabeth and brother-in-law Joseph Simmons, arrived in The Brothers on 21 December 1833. His name is not recorded in the list of The Brothers passengers, which also suggests that he was indeed still a babe-in-arms.
Ships That Shaped Australia, Jack L. Koskie,
Angus & Robertson, Sydney, 1987.
This publication contains colour reproductions of paintings of the schooner Elizabeth Cohen and the ps Rose (a sister ship the ps Thistle which Henry apparently later owned).
p.60 (penultimate paragraph): It is not true to say that Henry Cohen “started out with nothing”. Henry claimed at his Trial that his business “returned him £4000 to £5000 per year”, and when his wife and family followed him into exile they brought with them assets described, in two government documents of that time, as “a large sum” and “a great deal of money.”
p.61: The quote from the report in the Shipping Gazette regarding the Wanderer is defective in that it omits the following very pertinent matter from between the words “assist.” and “Messrs”: “The yacht was lightened . . . and they stood in the bar . . . Just on the bar, the breeze suddenly abated, and the keel of the vessel gently struck, and a strong flood-tide carried her to the south shore where . . . she stranded.”
How could Captain Easton have been “the pilot at Port Macquarie” if he was the master of the Elizabeth Cohen?
p.62: Henry arrived in (December) 1833, not 1832. The charge was “did receive . . . promissory notes . . . he well knowing them to have been stolen . . .”
p.64: His wife Elizabeth and ten (not eight) children followed him out.
“. . . on emancipation Henry was reunited with his family” is not strictly correct. Henry was fortunate in that he appears not to have been separated from his family while at Port Macquarie. Apparently, as a convict of the type “special”, and assigned to Major Archibald Clunes Innes, he was able to live with his own family in the township (see the police matter of the stolen trousers), there presumably attending to the Major’s interests during his working day. It may well be that, apart from not being able to benefit directly from his own labours, his only other handicap was that he could not work his apparently considerable assets in his own name. His wife and elder sons took care of that.
Edge of the Diaspora, Suzanne D. Rutland, Collins Australia, Sydney,
1988.
p.115: The p.243 ambiguity of Australian Genesis is compounded; and Edward Cohen is mistakenly described as a brother of Henry Emanuel Cohen; Edward was Henry Emanuel’s uncle, a brother of Henry Emanuel’s mother, Sophia (née Cohen).
No Other Home, Barbara Falk, Penguin Books, Melbourne, 1988.
Unfortunately, some errors of fact appear in this publication, many of them apparently because the publisher “inadvertently published the uncorrected version” of the text.
p.7: Henry Cohen’s wife’s name was Elizabeth, not Elisabeth (zed, not ess).
p.8: Henry Cohen’s second son Edward is identified on the record of his marriage as Edward Aaron Cohen. And note the Sydney Morning Herald, 23 June 1848: “Birth of a son to Edward A. Cohen at 512 George Street, Sydney, 22 June 1848”. Where did Barbara Falk get her Edward Henry from? Henry Cohen’s eldest son was named Samuel Henry.
p.8: Rebecca and Benjamin Benjamin’s father’s name was Moses Benjamin (not Lion)—as is noticed later on p.21. (Lion Benjamin was Moses’ father.)
p.8: Benjamin Benjamin married Edward Cohen’s niece (Fanny, the daughter of his older sister Sophia and Abraham Cohen), not his sister.
p.11,12: Where does the Henry Simeon Cohen come from. I have not yet sighted a document in which our Henry is described as other than simply “Henry Cohen.” (See his Will.)
p.12: Family Tree. See footnote 3 of this document for corrections to Jessop’s “Cohen of Paddington” family tree, and “How many children?” above for a fuller comment.
p.12: Henry Cohen’s third son’s name was Philip (only one ell).
p.12: Elizabeth’s Death Certificate states she was married in 1809 (not 1815) and Henry’s D.C. states he was married at “20 years of age”. As Elizabeth pre-deceased Henry I assume the informant (son-in-law, Abraham) would not have had any trouble ascertaining the “1809” date from Henry.
p.12: Family Tree. Philip Frankel’s article in AJHS, Vol. 1, Pt. 10, December 1943 (p.356), states that his father’s first wife’s name was Miriam Moses (not Sarah).
p.14: The trial transcript records that Henry stated in his written defence: “I return in my business between 4000l. and 5000l. per year,” that is, £4000–£5000, not “£4-500.” The “l” symbol then indicated English pounds, not florins.
p.14: “At his trial . . . the prosecuting lawyer said . . .” Not strictly correct. The matter thereafter quoted was a witness’ recounting of an exchange between Henry and the Post Office solicitor, Mr Peacock, at the time of the initial interview, before he was formally detained at Bow Street.
p.14: Henry was transported in the brig Lloyds (plural) not Lloyd.
p.15: The name of the ship in which the family arrived was apparently The Brothers, which, it seems, should not be confused with another ship Brothers which made voyages to NSW carrying convicts in 1824 and 1827. Richard Bourke, not Gipps, was Governor in 1836 at the time of the attempt to have Henry re-assigned to James Simmons. Bourke left for England in December 1837. Gipps arrived in February 1838.
p.16: It was “Becke’s” not “Becky’s” cottage. This is a reference to the cottage in which George Lewis Becke (1855–1913) as a child grew up. Becke was born at Port Macquarie (his father was Clerk of Petty Sessions) and, later in life, he became a prominent writer, using the pseudonym “Louis Becke”. I thought the original quote described the Becke’s cottage which had “three sets of fireplaces . . .” not Samuel Cohen’s; Samuel being merely “a neighbour to the Beckes.”
p.16: Sophia married Abraham Cohen in 1836, not 1835.
p.16: Henry’s son-in-law Abraham Cohen is not the
Abraham Cohen of Tamworth. (See above comment on Dr. Anthony P. Josephs
“On Tracing Australian Jewish Genealogy”.
p.16: It was Samuel Henry Cohen (1821–99), Henry’s eldest son—not Henry’s brother—who married Eliza Hyams in 1840. Samuel was Edward’s older brother. As far as I am aware Henry Cohen had no brother in Australia. He did have at least one sister and one brother (Benjamin Wolf Cohen) back in England.
p.17: “Henry’s conditional pardon was received from London in December 1843.” My research indicates that Henry’s name appeared on the Governor’s “Recommendations for Conditional Pardons,” dated 1 July 1842; the actual certificate of Conditional Pardon, No. 43/183, was signed at Sydney and dated 8 August 1843. And an annotation on the ToL Butt indicates that the C.P. was initially granted by the Governor on 28 April 1842.
p.18: It is the Hastings District Historical Society—now called the Port Macquarie Historical Society—not the Hasting Royal Historical Society.
p.18: The Cohen’s schooner was the Elizabeth Cohen, not Elisabeth Cohen.
p.20: Henry was not survived by his wife. She died 18 months earlier on 13 February 1866. He was survived by eleven of his children, not ten. The eldest daughter, Nancy (Simmons), was the only issue of mature age to pre-decease Henry.
p.20: Who/what was at Meningham, NSW? According to Henry’s Will, at the time of its making (October 1866) all the girls (except Caroline?) appeared to be resident in Sydney; Samuel, Edward and Philip were in Melbourne; Joseph was in Murrurundi; Lewis was in Launceston; and William was in Tamworth.
p.21: Henry Cohen’s mother was Priscilla Frances (née Benjamin), not Elizabeth Cohen.
p.22: The expression “the family of the Edward Henry Cohens” seems somewhat ambiguous to me. I don’t know whether it is referring to the family of Samuel Henry Cohen or the family of the Hon. Edward Aaron Cohen or to both: Henry Cohen’s two eldest sons were Samuel Henry and Edward Aaron. As is stated, Simeon Frankel did marry Anne, a daughter of the eldest son, Samuel Henry Cohen. But, it is not noticed that earlier (in 1854) Henry Cohen’s fifth son Lewis had married Jacob Frankel’s eldest daughter Mary. And, almost a generation later, Jacob’s son (by his second wife), Philip Frankel, married two sisters, Minnie and Estella Myra (his half nieces?), daughters of the same Lewis Cohen and Mary (née Frankel) who was Philip’s much older step-sister.
p.30: Was Edward’s wife Rebecca’s name Rebecca Moses Benjamin? Is this correct terminology in that Rebecca Bas (was the daughter of) Moses?
p.30: It is stated that “[Edward] returned there [to Melbourne] to live with his wife and son Nathan Edward aboard the Shamrock on 22 June 1848.” The Sydney Morning Herald of the following day, 23 June 1848, carried a notice “COHEN, Edward A. 512 George Street. Birth of a son on 22.6.1848.” And, there is an entry in the typed Index to NSW Births (1848 Vol 138 #387) “Child: Cohen, Nathan; Father: Edward; Mother: Sarah [sic].”
The Cohen and Levy Families
in England and Australia 1660–1990,
Pamela Brunel Cohen, 1990.
This Cohen family is not that of our Henry and Elizabeth. But, two of Henry’s prominent grand-sons, both sons of Henry’s daughter, Sophia, and Abraham Cohen, somehow get a mention: Henry Emanuel Cohen (1840–1912) and Nathan Cohen (1842–1910).
p.27: The Hon. Justice Henry Emanuel Cohen married Sophie Frank (at Sydney on 15 July 1884) not Sierlah Hyman. They had two sons: Edgar Henry (1885–1930) and Cecil Hope (1888–1918); both became barristers. And, Henry Emanuel’s twin brother was George (who also died 1912!); Nathan was a younger brother.
p.37: Again, Nathan Cohen was a younger brother of Henry Emanuel, not his twin.
The Jews in Australia, Vol.
1, 1788–1945, Hilary L.
Rubenstein, William Heinemann Australia, 1991.
Henry Cohen (of Port Macquarie) is referred to as Henry Simeon Cohen. Reference? Otherwise, same comment as for pp.11–12 of No Other Home above (from where this reference possibly came).
Jews of Ireland.
p.78: Eliza Hyams married Samuel Henry Cohen, the son of Henry and Elizabeth Cohen, not Caroline (Caroline was Henry’s daughter), and they were of Paddington, not Plymouth..).
Notes of Henry Robert Cohen
(b.1915) of Mosman, NSW—grandson of the Hon. Justice Henry Emanuel Cohen.
Robert Heath Hall’s Diary (see above) indicates that the schooner Elizabeth Cohen was still under the control of Samuel Henry Cohen in 1852, the year Horatio Tozer and his family removed from Port Macquarie. Cohen’s new schooner Eliza arrived in Port Macquarie on 30 June 1852. The Tozers left Port Macquarie by the Hannah on 17 September 1852. Heath Hall’s Diary gives the impression that the Tozers were leaving permanently but Horatio Tozer, at least, must have returned as he is apparently buried at Port Macquarie.
Jewish Sydney: The First
Hundred Years 1788–1888, Helen
Bersten, AJHS, Sydney, 1995.
p.3: The position on the map of the “41” tag indicating the location of the Devonshire Street Burial Ground is not correct, nor is the position of “Devonshire Street” correct; the present Randle Street seems to have been incorrectly identified as Devonshire Street. The map is not to scale but the area of “Belmore Lane / Mary Street / Devonshire Street” is very strange to say the least. The Burial Ground was on the site of the now Central Railway terminus. The pedestrian subway between Elizabeth Street (at Devonshire Street) and Railway Square is on the alignment of that portion of Devonshire Street that then was the southern boundary of the Burial Ground (see the older map on p.18). And, the “17” tag for “Cohen’s Family Hotel” should be on the corner of Margaret and Carrington (not indicated)—not York—Streets.
p.35: On this page is reproduced a Mitchell Library, Holterman Collection, 1880s photograph looking eastward down Margaret Street and showing “Cohen’s Family Hotel.” It is not noted that the “Cohen” was originally Abraham Cohen (1812–74), that is, Henry Emanuel Cohen’s father. In 1848–52 Abraham’s address was “Cleveland Cottage/Lodge, Castlereagh Street”; in 1866 it was “Wynyard Square”, so I assume that the Hotel dates from some time after 1852 (the Barracks were demolished and the “Wynyard Square” created in the “early 1850s”). Also, the caption mistakenly states that the Hotel was at the “corner Margaret and York Streets.” It was at the corner of Margaret and Carrington Streets (directly opposite Wynyard Park), where now stands what used to be the Shell Oil building but which now seems to be an annex of the Menzies Hotel.
p.30: It is stated that James Simmons “received his absolute pardon in 1842 and later established his business . . .” By 1842 James Simmons was well established as a successful businessman having commenced his commercial pursuits as early as 1823 after receiving his ToL.
p.36: I had the impression that Samuel Cohen joined with
his younger brother David (not his
eldest brother Lewis, with whom he had previously [1837–39] been in
partnership in Maitland as “L. & S. Cohen”) to form
“David Cohen & Co.” Lewis Wolfe Levy, while he was in business
at Tamworth (1846–1854)[1],
appears to have been acting on his own behalf as well as agent for David Cohen
& Co. (see Cohen & Levy’s advert in the first issue of the
Tamworth Examiner [1859?]: “Cohen
& Levy, established 1846—successors to L. W. Levy”; and
“L. W. Levy’s store” [Wallabadah Manuscript, on Tamworth in the 1850s]). In 1854 the Tamworth
store was passed from L.W.L. to his younger brother Louis and his cousin
Abraham Cohen (who was a younger brother of Lewis, Samuel and David), and
L.W.L. (then?) joined Samuel and David Cohen in that partnership, and he was
thereafter for some period the partner resident in Maitland (see above quote
from the letter from Samuel Cohen in Sydney to L. W. Levy in Maitland,
introducing Henry Emanuel Cohen, c.1856).
David Cohen & Co. always claimed establishment in 1836 (sometimes 1835),
which predates the arrival in Australia, in 1840, of both L. W. Levy. and David
Cohen. The eldest of the Cohen brothers, Lewis, arrived in 1831; Samuel arrived
in 1834; Abraham arrived in ????. Obviously, the 1835 establishment date
represents the year in which the brothers Lewis and Samuel started their
original trading enterprise.
In what year was the partnership retitled “David Cohen & Co.”?
1841? 1845?
Was L.W.L. in partnership with Samuel and David Cohen, or acting as agent for,
David Cohen & Co. during the period (1846–54) that he was in
Tamworth?
p.37: Henry Emanuel Cohen is described as Abraham Cohen’s grandson. He was Abraham’s son.
